Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Magister Technologiae: Discipline Electrical Engineering
in the Faculty of Engineering
at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology
2008 / As one of the biggest developing country in the world, South Africa is developing very fast
resent years. The country’s industrialization process is rapidly evolved. The manufacturing
industry as one of the most important sections of the industrialization is playing a very heavy
role in South Africa’s economic growth. Big percentage of population is involved in the
manufacturing industry. It is necessary to keep and enhance the competitiveness of the
South Africa’s manufacturing industry in the world wide. But the manufacturing companies
are facing with unpredictable market demands and global competitions. To overcome these
challenges, the manufacturing companies need to produce new products which can cater to
the market demand as soon as possible.
Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) is one of the possible solutions for the
manufacturing companies to produce the suitable product for the market in a short period of
time with low cost and flexibility. That is because the RMS can be reconfigured easily
according to the required specifications for manufacturing the appropriate product for the
market and with above mentioned characteristics. Now, RMS is considered as one of the
promising concepts for mass production. As one of the very latest research fields, many
companies, universities and institutions have been involved to design and develop RMSs.
South Africa as one of the most important manufacturing country in the world, her own
universities and researchers has the obligation to study this field and follow the newest
development steps.
In this project, a lab-scaled reconfigurable plant and a Field Programmable Gate Array
(FPGA) technology based reconfigurable controller are used to realize and verify the
concepts of the RMS in order to find the methodology of developing RMSs. The lab-scaled
reconfigurable plant can be reconfigured into the inverted pendulum and the overhead crane.
Although it is not used for manufacturing purpose, it can be used to verify the RMS concepts
and the control strategies applied to it. Furthermore, control of the inverted pendulum and the
overhead crane are both typical problems in the control field. It is meaningful to develop the
controllers for them. As the reconfigurable plant is configured, the reconfigurable controller is
reconfigured synchronously in order to produce the proper control signal for the reconfigured
plant. In this project, both linear and nonlinear control strategies are deployed. Good results
are received.
The outcomes of the project are mainly for the education and fundamental research
purposes, but the developed control strategies have significant sense towards the military
missile guidance and the overhead crane operation in industry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:cput/oai:localhost:20.500.11838/1069 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Han, Yi |
| Publisher | Cape Peninsula University of Technology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/za/ |
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